Lincolnite

This is a gag, right? "Authentic Kurdish and Mexican cuisine"? Seriously? Maybe there's a Middle Eastern / Central American fusion movement out there I'm not aware of. After all if Greek-Mexican fusion works, why not Kurdish-Mexican?

Good news, Lincolnites! We have finished paying for the Catalyst One Memorial Monument, aka the patches of blacktop on 14th & Q and 13th & P. Best of all, they only cost us $5 million, plus four chunks of lost property tax revenue! Sigh.

I haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but Chief Casady announced that LPD's 2008 Annual Report is now available online -- and only online. Kudos to LPD for saving a few of my dollars by not printing a bunch of copies that few would ever pick up and even fewer would actually read.

I took these two photos over the weekend. The audience of people who would know where these were taken is probably fairly small. Then again, you folks never fail to impress me. Can you guess where these photos were taken?

I'm still wary about certain aspects of the Antelope Valley Project, but at least one big milestone is getting closer to reality: Assurity's new headquarters has been approved by the City Council. Assurity's building will be the first major new construction in the area. Now there are two new questions: Who will be the next business to join Assurity? And will an influx of development in Antelope Valley help or harm development efforts elsewhere in the city?

My niece had her fifth birthday party on Saturday at Solid Rock Gymnastics. While there, Robbie tried out the zipline: I never would have done that when I was Robbie's age. Robbie ended up doing it about a half dozen times. He would have kept doing it all day had we let him. Such a little daredevil.

I overheard a couple bits of buzz about Panera Bread this weekend. First, it sounds like the aim is to have the new Downtown Panera open in June. The speaker didn't sound completely confident they would make that date. Given how quickly some of these chains can open a store, June sounds perfectly realistic to me. As for the Southpointe store, it will see a fairly major facelift in the near future. New carpet, new paint, new furniture, new awnings ... you get the idea.

That's right, Lincolnites, we're all a bunch of tree huggers. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Lincoln has now been a Tree City USA for 32 consecutive years. Speaking of the National Arbor Day Foundation, if you join they'll send you ten free trees. That's not a bad return on your investment.

Think you don't like Time Warner Cable now? Get ready for bandwidth caps that could push your monthly internet bill to $150 for "virtually unlimited" use. This while Time Warner's costs to supply bandwidth to users are actually decreasing. Verizon FiOS, where are you?

Sorry soccer fans. UNL put a quick end to the possibility of Memorial Stadium hosting World Cup matches. Maybe next century.

The Missus tells me she saw a sign on the former hardware store in Briarhurst Shopping Center at 48th and Highway 2 indicating that Dietze Music would soon be moving in. Presumably they will close up their current location in the triangle at 56th, Old Cheney, and Highway 2. The new location should give them more space and better visibility. As a nearby resident, I'm just glad to see something fill the space so soon. Parents take note: if you want to get rid of your kid for half a day, you will soon be able to send him to Dietze for music lessons followed by a trip next door to LearningRX for some brain training. And best of all, there's a bike path nearby so you don't even have to drive. It's perfect!

Could it be true? Could Centennial Mall finally get some lovin' thanks to a $2 million pot of cash we just happen to have lying around? The Mall has needed repairs and updates for as long as I can remember. Hopefully that fact has an impact on how we decide to renovate the area. That is, keeping it simple is going to be much cheaper and easier to maintain in the long run than trying to knock anybody's socks off. How about some simple paths, plenty of grass, some native plants, and ample formal and informal seating options?

Recently there has been quite a spate of news about the pending death of the newspaper. Could the New York Times be bankrupt as soon as this summer? Regardless of what your opinion is of the political slant of the Times, the possibility that such a well-known institution could be facing bankruptcy is a startling one. As noted by sites like Newspaper Death Watch, already a number of major dailies have either moved to online-only editions, gone under entirely, downsized delivery services, or have taken other significant measures to save costs, including our own Journal Star and World-Herald. The current economic situation only further batters an industry which has suffered over the years from web 2.0, craigslist, and so on. Predictions of what could happen to the newspaper industry vary, but many commentators seem to think that the landscape will be quite different in a few years. Technology will continue to change the industry, and the move towards “social journalism” is already happening. What are your own thoughts about the future of the industry? What will the Journal Star and World-Herald be like in 10 years? Any predictions?